Speaking More Better!

Having spent a considerable amount of my time teaching English and learning Chinese, language (and the studying or learning of) is almost always on my mind. I find myself trying to think in Chinese or thinking about my own language in new and challenging ways when asked a good question about English (I’m surprised how often we know so little about our own languages because we rarely stop to think about them).

I would love the opportunity to study Irish (Gaelic), Persian (Farsi), Japanese, and Latin but I doubt I’ll have the chance to even nibble at any of them in my life time. But languages fascinate me--I think they should be pushed harder in the US curriculum. My accomplishments in the field are few and small: a few summers ago I became fluent in Pig Latin... And get this: my twin brother and I spoke our own exclusive language as toddlers before the outside world came in and tore it away from us, forcing us to switch to English. Because of my last name, we often jokingly refer to it as “O’Connish.” Even today, my friends refer to the peculiar way that my twin and I speak English as “O’Connish accents.” We have a tendency to speak very fast and slur our words together, and sometimes even pronounce words in our own unique ways. When we are very comfortable or excited we often switch to this fast-paced English and our friends often complain. Some of the friends we’ve had for a long time even claim to “understand O’Connish.” But I digress. Although the “original” O’Connish has been lost, some names remain: Doogan and Dogan, which were our names for each other; Nahna – my older brother Marty, and Gahk – my oldest brother Erik. I wish more of this “language” could have been recorded!

Anyways I think this blog post is supposed to have some sort of point, something for the reader to take away, so I’ll argue something: the most important thing to practice when learning a language is speaking, speaking, and speaking! What good is mastering the grammar of a language when you lack the confidence or ability to speak it (well it’s good for research and academics I suppose)? I would rather be comfortable speaking a language even if my grammar was subpar than be a master at writing or reading it while being a lackluster speaker. However, speaking a language is also the hardest part—it takes practice, patience, and courage. But as Nike says, swoosh. Oops I mean just do it.

-Michael O’Connor

Let's Not Snow This Out of Proportion But...

Hello again! This is Michael from CE and I am here to rant about the winter. So we had our first blizzard of the season and the first full snow day since 1990 and I can't help but smirk at this. Although the Farmer's Almanac predicted that we will have a pestilential winter this year, many more "scholarly" sources said that this winter, in comparison the past few, will be more mild. The score thus far: Farmers: 1, Meteorologists: 0.

During my high school years (2001-05) we never had white Christmases. It never snowed until January. Seasonal snowfall was meager, never reaching 50 inches. That changed however when I migrated on over to the UW to attend college. How lucky was I to discover that as soon as I needed to start walking outside all day between classes, the weather of Wisconsin decided to berserk and deviate from its previous behavior. Thanks, Badger State. The past few winters have been record-setting in snow volume and frequency (snow in November was not uncommon). Last year, we broke the previous record of seasonal snowfall: ~79 inches. The new record to beat: a whooping ~101 inches. Wow. Although it makes for a nice white Christmas, it also makes for a hassle-filled end to first semester.

Because Wisconsin's change from autumn to winter can happen very abruptly, it is important to be prepared for winter and have everything you'll need. That said, I have prepared a list of things to have/keep in mind in order to properly prepare you for the advent of winter.

1) A massive, thick winter coat. In the midst of the Ice Age fashion should be the last of your concerns. Not everyone needs a $200 North Face parka (and a nice-looking peatcoat might not cut it during the most savage days of winter). Dress thick and warm. It is okay to walk around campus looking like a giant blob of coats. Besides, the more fashionable you look the harder I laugh when you slip on Bascom Hill.

2) Warm pockets to keep your iPod or cell phone in. People, including myself, like to walk between classes whilst listening to tunes. The cold, however, likes to suck out the battery power of electric goods like iPods or cell phones. Last year, my cell phone even broke simply because I was walking around outside too often with it in my pocket. The coldness scrambled my ability to get new voicemails. Likewise, my iPod was want to die and think it was out of battery even if I had just charged it 100% a few hours earlier. My advice is to keep these things in internal pockets if you have them.
3) Girls should never, never wear high heels. If you need them for something, bring them but don't wear them out on the ice. I don't pity the girls who slip on Bascom Hill's ice while during high heels. I laugh at them.
4) The warmer your coat, the less you need to wear underneath. This is benefitial for when you go inside places that have the heat pumped sky high. Too often my freshman year I made the mistake of trekking to class in long underwear and thick sweaters only to find myself sweating profusely in the middle of Feburary. Gross.

5) A scarf. On the coldest of days, this should be worn around your face, not just around your neck. Who cares if you look like a winter ninja, at least now your snot won't be freezing in your nose.

6) Wool socks. These are not necessary if you will not be outside for long. However, if you intend to find yourself outside for an extended period of time, wearing wool socks is heavenly. There will be no cold toes for you!
7) Hot chocolate is eternally delicious.

See you next semester!

All Hallow's Eve

Because this year was my last Halloween at the University of Madison, I thought it might be proper for me to reflect upon my experiences with the Holiday. [Random Fact: for those of you who do not know, the culture of Halloween as the modern world knows it today is a North American (US & Canada) invention but the holiday originates from Ireland.]

This year was my first time going to State Street since they began to charge money for entrance. The last time I went was the last time it was free...and believe me, I miss the chaos. It wasn't as exciting this year, but I guess something had to be done to control the out-of-state folks who came just to relish in the mayhem. This year I even got to watch the State Street event from the roof of an apartment on State Street!

Anyways, I thought I'd rate all of my costumes from across my years and show you the best, worst, and simplest ones. I've gone as many things and people...Indiana Jones, a cowboy, a zombie, and so on. I think the simplest costume I ever went as was...

A man getting eaten by a shark. I took the shark costume, threw it on over my body. Costume complete. This was my freshmen year at UW.

But some people on State Street liked it. I, however, was not too proud of myself. My best costume, the pinnacle of my creativity, I think, was...

Kim Jong Il, Glorious Leader of North Korea.This was my costume THIS year.

People love to make fun of that guy. However, a costume they would make fun of even more is my worst costume, which was...

Peter Pan. How manly. If I had gone as Hercules maybe I would have grown up to be over six feet tall.

Now that my last Halloween at UW is over, I think Halloween will only get boring for me unless I have Halloween parties to still go to. From here out in, Halloween will mostly just mean handing out candy to trick-or-treaters until I have kids of my own who I have to lead around to get candy (that part will be fun, I suppose). I also get to look forward to dressing up my children in horrendous cutsie costumes so that they grow up with a grudge against me, haha.

This is Michael of GUTS: Conversational English, signing off once again.

CE et Moi

你好 everyone…this is Michael O’Connor, the Conversational English External Relations Specialist over at GUTS. Today I’ll be blogging about some of my experiences with international students in CE.

My major itself has been shaped by my experiences with CE. I am majoring in International Studies and East Asian Studies, so the countries that captivate my interest the most are China, Japan, Taiwan, and the Koreas. This has not always been the case! For the first two years of college I found Europe much more enticing and focused my studies there. That all changed once I joined CE (although I still need to visit Ireland!). My first partner was in the summer. She was a girl from South Korea and she introduced me to Korean food and some cultural differences that she noticed between Americans and Koreans. I became much more aware of "little" things like body language, eye contact, and how horribly fast I spoke English, slurring all my words together. My friends still remark to me that they are amazed I tutor English when even they cannot understand me sometimes...

My conversational partner my junior year was from Japan and helping her practice her English was my first prolonged (one year) experience working with an international student. From her my knowledge of Japan expanded exponentially, moving beyond commonly known-about things like Nintendo (which I love) and sushi (which I also love). By the end of the year, I knew that I had an interest in visiting Japan and learning Japanese (which is sadly still TBA). Today, my former conversation partner and I are still in contact—writing letters (that’s right, with stamps and all—the old fashioned way) to each other about where our lives are heading. As a wee child I regarded Japan as a mysterious and near-mythical place and I knew very little about it beyond my avid interest towards things like Nintendo and Godzilla (or Pokemon cards with Japanese on them). Now that I have friends there and have actually visited Japan (albeit only for five days) I have a much more realistic and less nerdy interest in Japan...eh actually it's still pretty nerdy.

Japan:


My “conversion” to Asia was fully completed that summer, when I went to China to teach English to children in a cram school. There I spent a significant amount of my free time studying Mandarin. I found it much more engaging than French (the language I had previously studied) although I wasn't really sure why. It was just fun and different. Upon my return to Wisconsin and my studies, I received a new CE partner--a grad student from China. My new partner, although a student in physics, was very interested in international politics and was eager to talk me about China. He and his wife are also qualified to be Chinese teachers, so I was able to consult them with questions about Mandarin (which I had frequently). Over time, meeting with him and his wife multiplied my interest in China (and the love of its food). One year ago I looked at spicy food with disdain but now I love it (minus the heartburn)! Although I had left China thinking that the foreign language I truly wanted to learn was yet to be found, by the end of the year with my Chinese tutee Mandarin was back on my plate.

Me in China:


As another consequence, I took (and still am taking) many more China-oriented classes in History, Political Science, & Sociology. Lastly, French has become a thing of the past (desolé, mes amis français) and I am now enrolled in Chinese. One of my favorite hobbies has become annoying my American friends by speaking to them in Chinese and annoying my Chinese friends by constantly berating them with questions about Mandarin.

In this new year, I have gone full circle. My new tutee is from South Korea again and now that I am much more interested in East Asia I look forward to learning as much about it as I did for Japan and China.

w00t,
Until next time.
-Michael